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The battle for the next big thing in virtual reality isn't just raging among headset makers; there's also a battle over the 3D engines that power those experiences. Though most of the leading 3D engine makers offer robust support for burgeoning VR platforms, our anecdotal experience has seen creators leaning heavily toward the Unity engine. In total, 11 out of the 12 demos we tried out at last week's major HTC Vive Pre VR event took that route.

Epic Games, the creators of the popular Unreal Engine, want in on that action. On Wednesday, the company announced an ace up its sleeve: full inside-of-VR support. The feature, which will receive its first public demo during March's Game Developers Conference, will allow any owner of a motion-tracked VR system on a PC (meaning, HTC Vive or Oculus Touch) to warp into their in-development 3D worlds and edit them using nothing more than those systems' handheld controllers.

"As soon as we got our hands on the first Oculus, we were intrigued by the possibilities," Epic Technical Director Mike Fricker said in an interview with Ars. "[Co-founder] Mark Rein came to us in 2013 with the first Oculus DK1 and asked about getting an editor in VR."

House Republican Brian Babin chaired a hearing in which experts said NASA's plans for Mars lacked real substance. (credit: NASA)

For the last half-decade, NASA has resolutely declared that it has embarked on a Journey to Mars. Virtually every agency achievement has, in one way or another, been characterized as furthering this ambition. Even last summer when the New Horizons spacecraft flew by Pluto, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said it represented “one more step” on the Journey to Mars.

But as the end of President Obama’s second term in office nears, Congress has begun to assess NASA’s Mars ambitions. On Wednesday during a House space subcommittee hearing, legislators signaled that they were not entirely pleased with those plans. Comments from lawmakers, and the three witnesses called to the hearing, indicate NASA’s Journey to Mars may receive some pushback in the next year or two.

Some of the most critical testimony came from John Sommerer, a space scientist who spent more than a year as chairman of a National Research Council technical panel reviewing NASA’s human spaceflight activities. That panel’s work, summarized in a 2014 report titled Pathways to Exploration, considered possible pathways to Mars.

(credit: Comcast)

Comcast executives say they are ready to purchase spectrum in an upcoming auction if the price is right, potentially setting the stage for the nation's largest cable company to offer mobile broadband.

The Federal Communications Commission has scheduled the auction to begin on March 29. It will transfer spectrum licenses in the 600MHz range from broadcast TV to wireless service. The chance to buy low-band spectrum is seen as a golden opportunity for T-Mobile USA and other smaller carriers to improve their networks and compete more effectively against AT&T and Verizon Wireless.

But it also offers potential for companies that aren't currently wireless carriers, like Comcast.

The US Air Force has revised its retirement plan for the A-10 attack plane, keeping the aircraft in the air into the next decade when the F-35 is finally ready for combat (whenever that is). (credit: US Air Force)

In the Department of Defense's budget request for 2017, the Air Force has conceded what to many has been obvious—that the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will not be ready to take the place of the A-10 Thunderbolt II (also known as the "Warthog") in close air support missions any time soon. In its budget request, the Air Force is seeking funds to keep the A-10 flying, and DOD officials say the aircraft will remain in service until at least the 2022 fiscal year.

Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter gave a summary of the budget request in a speech at the Economic Club of Washington, DC on February 2. He said that the A-10 would be replaced by the F-35 squadron by squadron as the new aircraft are brought into service. But the Air Force has also reduced the number of F-35A aircraft it plans to purchase in 2017.

Officials at the Air Force's F-35 Joint Program Office had suggested last year that a "block buy" of F-35 aircraft, possibly in 2018, would reduce the overall cost of the program. But that idea is being opposed by the Defense Department's chief of systems testing. Michael Gilmore, the DOD's Director of Operational Testing and Evaluation (OT&E), has warned against committing to a "block purchase" of the F-35 by the US and other military customers until after the aircraft passes its initial operational test and evaluation.

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson. (credit: AT&T)

A Republican state senator in Tennessee is fed up with AT&T and other private Internet service providers that are trying to stop the spread of municipal broadband.

"We're talking about AT&T," Sen. Todd Gardenhire (R-Chattanooga) said at a rally of business owners, residents, and local officials in the state Capitol, the Chattanooga Times Free Press reported yesterday. "They're the most powerful lobbying organization in this state by far... Don't fall for the argument that this is a free market versus government battle. It is not. AT&T is the villain here, and so are the other people and cable."

The battle over municipal broadband in Chattanooga and surrounding towns is among the most prominent nationwide. Tennessee state law has prevented the Chattanooga electric utility—which also provides broadband—from expanding to adjacent communities that lack fast, cheap Internet access. Chattanooga petitioned the Federal Communications Commission to preempt that state law, and the FCC granted the request, using its authority to promote competition in local markets by removing barriers to infrastructure investment.